In 1951 the Swiss company Eternit, which made cement roofing and pipes, asked the designer Willy Guhl and his students to see what else their new fiber cement could become, and pieces like this one were the answer. Found in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, this is the form known as the Tilt planter, a wide, shallow dish set at an angle on a short flaring stand, its white surface flaked and weathered back to the grey cement beneath. Guhl worked the material while it was still wet and soft enough to shape, which is how a building product turned into the curving, sculptural forms that made his name in mid-century design. Sylvie sets it out on a stone terrace planted low with succulents, tipped toward the sun the way it was made to be.
